Exodus - 14:5-31

This is ERC Sundays, the messages at Emmaus Rd.

Church in DeWitt, Iowa. ERC is a Church of people

striving to grow in Jesus and make him known to others through

our faith, words and actions. Find out more about our church

at emmausrdonline.org. Here's this week's message.

We are continuing on. We're in the middle of Exodus

and it's about to get really good.

If you've, if you've read ahead, well, not that it wasn't good

already, but like that now we're now we're getting to like we're

getting to some fighting and some wars and some, some danger.

So it's exciting. We are in Exodus Chapter 14 this

Exodus 14 · chapter mention

morning. Before we get there last week we

focused on Pastor Chris taught on the the final plague the the

Passover happening and and the killing of the first born those

that were not covered by the blood of the lamb those

households that were not protected the first borns of the

Egyptians. Pharaoh was so distraught at the

loss of his son that he finally relented and said, okay, Yup,

Moses, take your pesty people with you, get them out of my

Kingdom. Go, we don't need you.

We'll, we'll set your people free.

They're wandering in the wilderness.

The Israelites leave and there's there's this really kind of kind

of extra thing that we're going to have to talk about.

Pastor Chris and I are going to have to talk about on the

podcast tomorrow about these pillars of cloud and fire that

are that are guiding the Israelites through the

wilderness, a pillar of smoke by day and A and a pillar of fire

by night. We're, we're going to get into

that a little bit later, even at the end of the message here,

because Paul in the New Testament even references back

to this story as kind of the foundations of God's people.

But we're not going to focus on that today.

I just, I just want to put it in there as a marker that they are,

they're wandering. They're, they're kind of not

aimlessly, but they're out there.

We're, we're talking a few 100,000 people here wandering

out in the middle of nowhere trying to figure out where

they're going. Lots of logistics.

All the things Pharaoh, the the remorse, the pain of the death

of his son did not last very long.

He realized what they lost, what they gave up.

This was a huge part of their economy, even this this free

slave labor that they were having from these Hebrews, this

nation of Israel. He changes his mind once again

and we're going to see this phrase in this text in Exodus 14

of of God hardened his heart. That's that's going to sound

because it does say the Lord, it says God hardened his heart

against God. We should take that as a as a

warning, all these plagues, God showed himself and his power to

the people of Egypt, to the king of Egypt.

And Pharaoh kept saying, no, no, no, no, I don't see it.

I don't want to see it. I don't want to be reasoned into

it. And God gave him what he wanted.

He had pitted his heart against God.

And God said, OK, I'm going to work all things together for

good, for the good of those who love me.

And you don't love me. You have decided, Pharaoh, to

harden your own heart, to turn yourself against me.

That's how it's going to be. And you're not going to like how

that turns out for you, Pharaoh. That's where we are.

Pharaoh's changed his mind, gets together a group of Chariots and

soldiers and they're chasing the Israelites down.

We're going to pick up in Exodus chapter 14, there are Bibles

Exodus 14 · chapter mention

under the seats in front of you, some red hardback ones.

Again, like Christian said before, if you need a Bible or

know someone who needs a Bible, we have.

We have large print ones, kids ones, regular ones out there.

Please take a Bible with you today on the bottom shelf out

there on the way out. For now, we are in Exodus 14.

We're going to pick up at verse 5.

Can you guys switch the screen for me?

That would be great. When the king of Egypt was told

that the people had fled, the mind of Pharaoh and his servants

was changed towards the people, and they said, What is this we

have done, that we have let Israel go from serving us?

So he made ready his chariot and took his army with him, and took

600 chosen Chariots and all the other Chariots of Egypt, with

officers over all of them. And the Lord hardened the heart

of Pharaoh king of Egypt. When Pharaoh drew near, the

people of Israel lifted up their eyes, and behold, the Egyptians

were marching after them, and they feared greatly, And the

people of Israel cried out to the Lord.

They said to Moses, Is it because there are no graves in

Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness?

What have you done to us in bringing us out of Egypt?

Is not this what we said to you in Egypt?

Leave us alone that we may serve the Egyptians, for it would have

been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the

wilderness. And Moses said to the people,

Fear not, stand firm and see the salvation of the Lord, which he

will work for you today, for the Egyptians whom you see today you

shall never see again. The Lord will fight for you, and

you have only to be silent. The Lord said to Moses, why do

you cry to me? Tell the people of Israel to go

forward, Lift up your staff and stretch out your hand over the

sea and divide it, that the people of Israel may go through

the sea on dry ground. And I will harden the hearts of

the Egyptians so that they go in after them.

And I will get glory over Pharaoh and all his hosts, his

Chariots and his horsemen. And the Egyptians shall know

that I am the Lord when I have gotten glory over Pharaoh, his

Chariots, and his horsemen. Then Moses stretched out his

hand over the sea, and the Lord drove the sea back by a strong E

wind all night and made the sea dry land, and the waters were

divided. The people of Israel went into

the midst of the sea on dry ground, the waters being a wall

to them on their right hand and on their left.

The Egyptians pursued and went in after them into the midst of

the sea, all Pharaoh's horses, his Chariots, and his horsemen.

And in the morning watch the Lord.

And the pillar of fire and of cloud looked down on the

Egyptian forces and through the Egyptian forces into a panic,

clogging their chariot wheels, so that they drove heavily.

And the Egyptians said, Let us flee from before Israel, for the

Lord fights for them against the Egyptians.

Then the Lord said to Moses, Stretch out your hand over the

sea, that the water may come back upon the Egyptians, upon

their Chariots, and upon their horsemen.

So Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the sea

returned to its normal course when the morning appeared.

And as the Egyptians fled into it, the Lord threw the Egyptians

into the midst of the sea. The waters returned and covered

the Chariots and the horsemen. Of all the hosts of Pharaoh that

had followed them into the sea, not one of them remained.

But the people of Israel walked on dry ground through the sea,

the waters being a wall to them on the right hand and on their

left. And thus the Lord saved Israel

that day from the hand of the Egyptians.

And Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore.

Israel saw the great power that the Lord used against the

Egyptians. So the people feared the Lord,

and they believed in the Lord and His servant Moses.

This is the word of God. There's a great theme of fear,

not only in this passage, but I would argue gripping our society

and our world even today. Fear is something that populates

our minds. Is, is is crippling to some,

mostly because we all fear something.

There might be some of you in here like I'm a man, I don't, I

don't fear anything. I ain't afraid of nothing.

On some level. Even the most capable, if if you

think about it correctly, even the most capable among us, my

mind goes, goes to Elon Musk. This guy, this guy's got his

sights set in the universe, man. There's, there's like nothing

that he feels like is out of his reach, but definitely eternal

life. He can't make, buy, create,

invent his way to eternal life. And at some point, if he doesn't

already, he's going to come face to face with that fear that he

doesn't have an answer for eternal life and he can't do it

in and of himself. So even the most capable,

confident, brave, courageous of us, we all fear something.

Some of us fear a lot of things. By the end of this message, I

hope to convince you that there's only one thing that we

should rightly fear, and that is the Lord God Almighty Yahweh who

fights for us. Something we should fear, the

hardening of our hearts. We see this phrase in this

story. We see it throughout the Bible.

Really. God giving them up.

Even in the New Testament, God gave them up to the desires of

their flesh. Those that were rebelling,

rebelling against him, participating in sexual

immorality. God gave them up to the lusts of

their flesh. If we repeatedly choose the

things that are opposed to God over him, well, that's where our

hearts are. And God wants our hearts.

I heard something from a psychologist this week.

I'm not, I'm not sure where he got it from, but he said the

phrase wherever you go in crisis, that's where your Christ

is. When you panic, when you fear,

what do you run to? Do you run to social media to

see other people's misfortunes or just to compare your life to

theirs and feel better about yourself?

Do you run to a bottle? Do you run to pornography or or

inappropriate relationships? What you run to in crisis is

where your Christ is and if we are constantly a people of fear,

we are constantly in crisis. If we're not running to God,

what are we running to? If we continually run to it

instead of God, it's like a callus that built builds up on

your hands. We've, we've, we've built a

barrier between our lives and God hardening our own hearts and

God giving us up to those desires, to those things that we

run to in crisis instead of him. This is the dilemma for the

people of Israel and this is the dilemma for us today.

They were in slavery. They were in captivity for

hundreds of years, for generations.

That doesn't sound like a good time.

And yet, when faced with the fear, when faced with a sea

before them and an army behind them, where did they run in

crisis? They ran to fear.

It would be better to serve the Egyptians.

It would be better to go back to these oppressive lives in

captivity as slaves than to die here in the wilderness.

I'm not going to read through the whole thing again right now,

but a fun exercise for you, for you later.

Anytime in this passage in chapter 14 that you see the word

Egypt or Egyptians, replace it with fear, replace it with sin.

Behold, there's sin marching after them, and they feared

greatly. Is this not what we said to you,

Moses, in our sin? Leave us alone that we may serve

our sin. It would have been better for us

to serve our sin than to die here in the wilderness.

The the, the Israelites had a dilemma before them that faces

many of you here today. Too many of you, that revival

that I was talking about before, many of you.

This, this Jesus thing that winds starting to get strong

again, that fire starting to burn, maybe brightly for the

first time, may maybe in a new way.

Maybe you've got a new fresh, fired up understanding of what

it means to follow Christ. This was the freedom the

Israelites were entering into. There were new lies ahead of

them. There was exciting our gods

bring us to the promised land, life ahead of them.

And the first obstacle they encounter, that old life that

they left behind, is chasing them down and running after

them, and they're ready to go back to it.

They're ready to walk into the open arms of this life of fear

and sin and death only because they're not sure.

They're not convinced that God can do it.

That's faith, right? There's some unknown in there.

And when the Israelites were faced with that, they thought it

was safer to run back to what they knew.

They were sure that that life was oppression and captivity and

slavery and sin, but they knew what it was, and that was safer

than the unknown of what God had in store for them.

Their faith was lacking. And for us, I think it's the

same. How does this work for us today?

Each and every one of these 10 commandments.

Now don't hear what I'm not saying.

Jesus came as the fulfillment of the law and really re

established the law into into two things, love God and love

people, right. We we have that re established

relationship. Jesus is the fulfillment of the

law, not to not to enforce it and hold it over our heads, but

to be a sacrifice once and and for all to fulfill it.

These 10 commandments still a pretty good blueprint on how to

live your life. It's still God's word.

It's still his commandments in his direction.

Each and every one of these sins is rooted in fear.

When we break each and every one of these commandments, it's

rooted in fear. Thou shalt have no other gods

before me. God, I don't, I don't feel you

right now. And I'm, I'm afraid that you're

not here. So I'm going to drown.

I'm going to drown myself on Instagram.

I'm going to drown myself in this hobby.

I'm going to put this thing before you because I'm afraid

that you're not enough for me. So I'm going to put this thing

before you because I'm, I'm afraid that you're not good

enough. God, remember the Sabbath.

Keep it, keep it holy God. I'm afraid that I can't get all

these things done, so I'm not taking a day off.

I'm afraid that there's always going to be more work to do and

that even though you say the Sabbath is holy and good and

best for me, I think keeping my nose to the grindstone is what's

best for me. I'm afraid I'm not going to get

it done honoring my father and mother.

I'm afraid they don't know what's best for me.

I think I know better. They haven't lived my life.

I'm afraid of following what they have laid out for me, not

to commit adultery. I'm afraid that I'll never, I'll

never find love the way you describe it.

God, I'm afraid that maybe even the love in my life isn't the

way you designed it. I'm afraid that I'm not going to

be fulfilled enough in your love, God.

So I'm going to find it other places.

I'm going to find it in pornography.

I'm going to find it in inappropriate relationships

because I'm afraid that I'm not going to get the love that you

have for me stealing. I'm afraid that I can't live

without this thing. I'm afraid that my life's not

good enough. My life's going to be better if

I have this thing. All of our sin is rooted in fear

of the unknown and a lack of trust that God says He's enough

in each and every facet of our lives.

Moses. His response fueled, encouraged

by God. Fear not.

Don't run back to fear. Stand firm.

See the salvation of the Lord. He's already.

He's already brought you out of Egypt.

What are you talking about? You want to go back to this

life? You're free right now.

The Lord will fight for you. You only have to be silent.

He hardens the hearts. He makes the Egyptians stubborn.

It's irrational that they would change them.

They also came with like, way less people than it would take

to actually maybe they were just going to kill them.

That we're not. We're not fully sure if they

were just going to wipe them out or trying to bring them into

captivity. They did not bring enough of an

army to to bring this population of Israelites back to Egypt.

It was already irrational. And then God makes a way.

Moses stretches, stretches out his hand over the sea.

The Lord drove the sea back. Now this is this is where it

gets real crazy, right? Like, OK, God, yeah, we wanted

you to make a way. But this I also don't know if I

want that. I don't, I don't know if I want

to walk through that either. But that's the way that he made.

And he said go forward. So your options are are to delve

headlong into this way that God has made lead on Good Shepherd

and he says, I'm even going with you.

I'm I'm not sending you on your own.

I'll I'll be there right with you.

You can either walk ahead into this kind of crazy unknown, or

you can go back to a life of sin, because that life of sin is

chasing each and every one of us down, just like the Egyptians

taste down the people of God. There's a lot of you in here.

I've heard stories, those of you battling depression right now,

battling sin habits, battling physical health, mental health,

fractured relationships, all of that orchestrated by the Evil 1

to make you run back to the safety of sin, to discourage you

from walking in the light of our Lord.

I'm not saying it's easy, and I'm not saying you can just

shrug any of that stuff off. But see the devil's snares as he

throws them at you, understand that they're meant to discourage

you. They're meant to tear you away

from God because God's already hardened his heart.

There's no coming back for Satan.

He is Pharaoh. His life is forfeit.

It's given up. He's hardened his heart against

God, and he's chasing after you to take down as many of the

people of God as he can. God intervened.

God delivered. We don't know exactly the chaos,

but God's even messing with how their chariot wheels are

rolling. Of course, there's the the the

craziness of The Tempest of the sea and the Egyptians even

realize let us flee for the Lord fights for them all they had to

do. Moses even told them they could

be silent. They could be silent and walk.

Walk in the way that God has made for you.

Walk in the life that God has brought you into, out of that

life of sin and fear, and the Lord fights for you in ways that

we can't design or imagine, ways that we don't even know that we

needed. Thus the Lord saved Israel that

day from the hand of the Egyptians, from the hand of sin,

from the hand of fear, and Israel saw wait for it here.

Israel saw sin dead on the seashore.

Israel saw fear dead on the seashore.

Israel saw the great power that the Lord used against sin, used

against fear. Look at their response.

So the people feared the Lord and this is a holy, reverent

God's in sovereign control of all the things sort of fear.

It's the kind of fear that I that I want my kids to have for

me. I was joking with with my wife

this past week because I had I had to step in and they they

weren't getting together for bedtime and brushing their

teeth. And my wife said, can you ask

him to do it? I just jokingly, I just jokingly

say, you're here, man, Pastor Skid, welcome to your life.

Sermon illustrations all the time.

Jokingly, of course, acquiesce. Heard her request and jokingly

said, yeah, you got. They're just not afraid of you.

I hope it's not in a bad way, but in this, in this reverent

way, When Dad says it, he means business.

When Dad says it, he's in control.

When God says it, he's fighting for you and he's going to do

what he said. He's going to follow through.

It's the security of that holy fear.

That's the only thing. Our God is the only thing that

we should rightly fear because he crushed sin.

He crushed real fear and he crushed death.

Look at their response. So they feared the Lord, and

where and what does that fear lead to?

Belief. A holy, reverent awe of the

Lord, Putting him rightly first, rightly in control.

Not fearing and sinning and rebelling and putting things

before Him leads to belief, and not only in him, but leads to

belief in the one he sent. We're looking for Jesus in every

passage, right? The the every part of the Bible

is really about him. Yeah, we're, we're talking about

Moses literally in this story. But the fear of the Lord leads,

leads to belief in Him and in the one he sent.

His Son fuels our belief in Jesus.

In Second Timothy, God gave us a spirit not of fear, but of power

and love and self-control. Those are three fairly

independent ideas. Seemingly a more a more readable

translation simply puts it as freedom.

God gave us a spirit not of fear, but of freedom.

Because we know God's power, we know God's love and because he's

in control, we then have self-control to follow after him

to not run back to that life of sin and fear.

This is the last thing I'm going to leave you with and I'm going

to invite the, the band to come back up.

We'll we have one more song. Paul in his first letter to the

Corinthian church in chapter 10, he writes to them.

I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were

all under the cloud and all passed through the sea.

Remember that the pillar of cloud by day, obviously we just

talked about the parting of the Red Sea.

It passed through the Red Sea and all were baptized into Moses

in the cloud and in the sea. All ate the same spiritual food

and all drank the same spiritual drink, for they drank from the

spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ.

Even Paul was drawing lines from Moses to Christ.

Moses as the deliverer of God's people from Egypt, Jesus as the

deliverer of the world of all that would come to him and

choose him over fear. Not only that, how do we enter

into that how how do we become covered in the people of God?

Look, look at the words that that Paul used here.

All were baptized into Moses in the cloud and the sea.

We talk about the next the next steps, what we can do next here

what what we we want to answer the the questions each and every

week. We want to be really clear about

who this is all about. It's about Jesus.

If you come here, I I hope that's abundantly clear that

this is all about Jesus, what it's about.

He wants your heart. He wants you in a life following

after him for the good of yourself, for the good of your

family, for your friends, for the good of your eternal

standing before God. We want you to find community

and encouragement here amongst believers.

The third question is, is what is there for you to do next?

Well, how, how do we do that? Step one is, is being baptized

in the same way that Paul's drawing lines to how the

Israelites were brought into God's favor.

I think we think about baptism sometimes too much in the way we

we stop it. God cleansing us and cleaning

us. Yes, that's true.

That's it, that happens. That's the expression of him

washing away our sins. But also we get an amazing

picture in this passage of the power of baptism that has laid

our sin and our fear to waste on the shore.

In baptism we not only get the covering of God, the cleansing

of our sins, but He destroyed sin and death and fear in that

baptism, the same way that He delivered the Israelites from

the Egyptians in laying the Egyptian army to waste in the

waters. That's why you should be

baptized. It's God declaring you clean and

you experiencing the power of him destroying sin and fear in

that life that was chasing you down no more.

You are no longer slaves to sin and fear and death.

You are my people. You are my child, is what he

says to us in baptism. He did it for hundreds of

thousands of his people in one breath.

Of course he can do it for you. It's going to be chilly this

fall. We're going to have, we're going

to have a baptism event on the Wapsey, on the river in October.

It's going to be chilly. It's going to be good.

If you don't want to wait for that, we can baptize you this

morning. We just need water in the Word.

That's all we need. If you, if you can't wait and

want to enter into that today, we can do it right up here after

the service. If you want to experience waters

washing over you in the river, just wait a couple weeks.

We're going to make it happen. We're going to celebrate, one

way or the other, God's tremendous victory over sin and

fear and the washing of your sins.

He is our deliverer. He is our rock.

We are no longer slaves to fear and sin and death.

You are a child of God. Let's pray.

Thanks for listening to ERC Sundays.

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